StJ: There’s quite a few old farts around here and I’m one of them. However, if a school building was over 50 years old, it probably still had slate blackboards until they were replaced by whiteboards, which would have happened only in the last few years. IIRC, an old converted school building that I was in last winter still had the slate blackboards up on the walls.

BTW, it turns out that no only can you buy coffee cups with chalkboard paint on them, you can make your own. 🙂 I’m not clear on why someone wouldn’t just use a white ceramic mug and markers, though. Because the markers are toxic?

And scared of creatures like you two. Justifiably. I like Jins response, however.

How quickly people settle into a routine and get used to each other again. Even after 52,000-some-odd years. Gotta wonder what mom’s been doing all this time though. Both in the demon world and, more recently, in this one.

Heheh. You ever see that coffee commercial where there’s like an army of exaggeratedly ecstatic morning people like, floating around and popping into peoples’ homes and annoying everyone, and then at the end of the commercial it’s all like… “buy our coffee, it makes mornings bearable”?

Must be nice. Like most, I’m forced to be on a morning schedule. Problem is I can’t sleep well, period, so I’m up and down all night. Like now. I recall hearing one doctor talking about how he never let his family sleep in, even on Saturday and holidays. As he put it, “I like to get the family up and moving.” He was a moring person (as well as a Type-A). I felt instant empathy and pity for them.

I’m fine when I wake up… Problem is that not only do I have a problem waking up early (thanks to Asperger’s, it turns out), but I’m also slow to get going, and it takes me a good 2 hours from “staying out of bed” to “full speed”. At least after 30 years of this, my body can function fully after 15-20 minutes, faster if I need it to.

I’m not fully awake until I’ve been awake for a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours. I can force a more alert posture and faster pace before that, but I end up being more likely to snap at people or have an emotional breakdown.

The coworkers I’ve had to train over the years have confided in me (after getting used to my mannerisms) that when they first started, one and all they self-imposed the rule of “Do NOT speak to Julie before 10 am unless you just want one-word answers…or don’t mind getting your head ripped off.”

Sounds like Mayahuel is still processing all the events from when she was trapped in that other dimension. I know she had first-hand experience of what fear and non-understanding does to people, but on the global scale, I’m sure it’s a lot to try to take in.

…err? She just spent 50,000 in a whole DIMENSION full of the darkest aspects of the human (and others?) psyche. I’d think that the regular, petty disagreements of normal people might seem downright cheerful to her.

I don’t like coffee either, and also prefer tea. I have found, however, if you find the right blend and put enough sweetner and milk/cream in, it can be palatable, even tasty. Not that I’ve had much experience at that sort of thing. I’ve only had it like that twice, and at IHop both times, when I was 14 or 15. I have not been back to IHop since then and have tried it with other coffees, but they were never as good.

Black coffee is definitely an acquired taste. And after awhile one can start to discern certain geographical sources and roasts, even in blends. There are blends and roasts galore that I like and those I don’t.

But in the morning, Irish breakfast tea and Earl Grey in the afternoon do just fine…

IN-teresting. May has seen (and caused, and helped cause) more destruction, terror, and death than most people could imagine. She’s experienced brutal tyranny and terrible pain first-hand, had to make horrific decisions, and is older than dirt. Well, dirt that isn’t over 100,000 years old. And yet she’s not cynical and hasn’t given up hope for humanity.

I like that Maya seems to be so positive despite all her trials. Kinda makes you wonder how someone with that sort of personality got into the whole golem-making and power-broking sort of world to begin with.

Shen probably started out as a much different person. Full of ambition and avarice, not to mention murder. The things she has experienced since would either create a horrific monster, bent on vengence, or a much more understanding individual. She seems to have become the latter.

Those cat (or is it reptile?) eyes must be disconcerting to people she meets, however.

Not my wallet. My education was free, unknowingly provided by my mother and her seemingly endless stream of partners. It’s amazing what people will do and say around children. They always think the kid is not listening, or otherwise oblivious to the proceedings. Some of that is true at the time, but, as one matures, one begins to put those early memories into perspective and context. I began to have eureka moments about what I didn’t understand or appreciate way back when.

when my mom had her first heart attack, back in 2001, she switched from regular coffee, then to half decaf, and finally to tea. She’s been gone a year now, and I’m still drinking a big cup of tea in the mornings. Unless it’s an emergency, then break out my big Johnny Fever mug and lop me off a hunk of java.